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The Smiler - General Discussion

Nick said:
The Smiler is great, but is let down by the restraints- which are far too tight, reducing the out of control feeling that the ride would have with lap-bars. If this coaster had lap-bars, then not only would it be more comfortable, but would accentuate each of the inversions and the air-time on the hills. But, even then, it's a great ride, and possibly the best use of the space possible.
Click to expand...

After riding Karacho at Tripsdrill which is the other Gerst infinity but has lapbars. Karacho is smooth for a Gerst and the lapbars are comfy but The Smilers quick and short transitions into elements would make lapbars even more uncomfortable than the OTSR's. OTSR's at least save your top half of your body jolting around which can be painful with lapbars and multiple & fast changes in direction.
 
Russ said:
Nick said:
The Smiler is great, but is let down by the restraints- which are far too tight, reducing the out of control feeling that the ride would have with lap-bars. If this coaster had lap-bars, then not only would it be more comfortable, but would accentuate each of the inversions and the air-time on the hills. But, even then, it's a great ride, and possibly the best use of the space possible.
Click to expand...

After riding Karacho at Tripsdrill which is the other Gerst infinity but has lapbars. Karacho is smooth for a Gerst and the lapbars are comfy but The Smilers quick and short transitions into elements would make lapbars even more uncomfortable than the OTSR's. OTSR's at least save your top half of your body jolting around which can be painful with lapbars and multiple & fast changes in direction.
Click to expand...

I disagree. If the lap-bars are done properly then they should hold you in fine, and at least to the level of OTSR. Gerst's OTSR's are built in a way to hold you down at the lap, anyway, so there's no reason why there needs to be further restraints.
 
Nick said:
Russ said:
Nick said:
The Smiler is great, but is let down by the restraints- which are far too tight, reducing the out of control feeling that the ride would have with lap-bars. If this coaster had lap-bars, then not only would it be more comfortable, but would accentuate each of the inversions and the air-time on the hills. But, even then, it's a great ride, and possibly the best use of the space possible.
Click to expand...

After riding Karacho at Tripsdrill which is the other Gerst infinity but has lapbars. Karacho is smooth for a Gerst and the lapbars are comfy but The Smilers quick and short transitions into elements would make lapbars even more uncomfortable than the OTSR's. OTSR's at least save your top half of your body jolting around which can be painful with lapbars and multiple & fast changes in direction.
Click to expand...

I disagree. If the lap-bars are done properly then they should hold you in fine, and at least to the level of OTSR. Gerst's OTSR's are built in a way to hold you down at the lap, anyway, so there's no reason why there needs to be further restraints.
Click to expand...

Karacho only has 4 inversions with a good break between them but I found myself on at least one of them with my body whipping to the side. Yes I felt safe in them but I'm just saying I don't think they would be suitable for The Smiler. I am sure others would agree with me.
 
Russ said:
Nick said:
Russ said:
Nick said:
The Smiler is great, but is let down by the restraints- which are far too tight, reducing the out of control feeling that the ride would have with lap-bars. If this coaster had lap-bars, then not only would it be more comfortable, but would accentuate each of the inversions and the air-time on the hills. But, even then, it's a great ride, and possibly the best use of the space possible.
Click to expand...

After riding Karacho at Tripsdrill which is the other Gerst infinity but has lapbars. Karacho is smooth for a Gerst and the lapbars are comfy but The Smilers quick and short transitions into elements would make lapbars even more uncomfortable than the OTSR's. OTSR's at least save your top half of your body jolting around which can be painful with lapbars and multiple & fast changes in direction.
Click to expand...

I disagree. If the lap-bars are done properly then they should hold you in fine, and at least to the level of OTSR. Gerst's OTSR's are built in a way to hold you down at the lap, anyway, so there's no reason why there needs to be further restraints.
Click to expand...

Karacho only has 4 inversions with a good break between them but I found myself on at least one of them with my body whipping to the side. Yes I felt safe in them but I'm just saying I don't think they would be suitable for The Smiler. I am sure others would agree with me.
Click to expand...

I thought this after riding Karacho too. I think the fact that it has 14 inversions exacerbates this problem - if it'd had less then it probably would have had lapbars.
 
Before riding Karacho I was intrigued by the prospect of finding out whether we'd really missed out with The Smiler not getting lap restraints. My conclusion after riding it was that we have, just not by as much as you might think.

I was hoping for a nicely shaped lap restraint that would stay in one place and remain comfortable during the ride, but I was actually expecting an ergonomically imperfect lump that would be pressing on my thighs by the brake run (this is Gerstlauer after all). Unfortunately the restraint design is nowhere near the standard of Mack's mega coaster OTSLR design and turned out to fulfil my expectations.

When you take your seat in the station it's perfectly acceptable. Not as comfortable as it could be, but not bad either. It's slimmer than you'd think and combined with the basic seat it makes you feel very exposed. It's best to have it tight from the off, as the roll before the launch is...interesting even if you're held in tightly. Once you get outside you realise that having it slightly loose would be pointless anyway, as it gets tighter during the ride and will be trying to crush your thighs just as much as an OTSR would by the brake run. There's a limit to how tight they can get with your legs in the seat of course, but I still wonder whether Smiler would possibly be even worse for this as Karacho is nowhere near as intense (we were told that the launch runs at 83-85% power to reduce the height/age limits; the result is a good ride that nonetheless feels frustratingly slow in places and is obviously running below its potential, rather than the great, Smiler-intense coaster that might be waiting to come out on full power :( ).

Lower body comfort then isn't really any better, but I'd still like Smiler to have these restraints for the upper body freedom. The main advantage is not having to worry about keeping your head forward out of the OTSR's way. The feeling of exposure is where I think Towers have really missed a trick though, as this combined with Smiler's tangle of track, supports and head choppers would be fantastic and would terrify many UK guests! >:D

Towers, if you're reading this, I urge you to get Gerstlauer back in for some lap restraints (but perhaps suggest a system to lock them in place upon leaving the station).
 
Looks like heavy rain today has caused flooding in the queue line. So that clearly wasn't sorted over the closed season, not that there was much they could actually do without digging a load of it up!

:)
 
Tom.B said:
So have they basically done nothing over the closed season?
Click to expand...
Yup, the ride is down for hours or days at a time, just like last season.

No, they've obviously done stuff. Noone can deny reliability is far better.
 
The reliability is certainly better in that it is opening daily. However it still seems to be going down pretty much every day from what I can tell.

:)
 
I was at AT on Thursday and had 3 goes on the smiler, first and 2nd ride i was towards the front of the car but the last one I went as a single rider (abandoned by my companions as they wanted a beer) and I ended up on the back row, I couldn't believe how rough the ride was, it was like the wheel under me was a 50p shape, towards the end of the ride i was so uncomfortable I just wanted it to be over. I'm a massive fan of the smiler and have been on it many times but something was clearly wrong here. Such a shame there are so many issues with such a great ride, I love the noise it makes as it goes round the track sounds angry!
 
If it rained as heavily up in Towers as it did down south or in Fleetwood then not even a decent drainage system would have prevented flooding...
 
I think the flaw in the drainage was making a concrete bowl to put it in. The drainage structure that would be needed with no available natural draining would be immense in a sudden downpour... Nothing much they could do after construction to fix that.

All down to Merlin's unique brand of crappy planning.
 
When I went in October it was pouring down and the queue was really bad for puddles something that I though they would have a go at putting right over the closed season however sad to report nothing at all had changed when I was there last week. There are drains, quite a lot of them however they seem to be blocked by crap and the concrete doesn't slope towards them so the rain just pools. It was raining cats and dogs as we left on Thursday so I imagine anyone still in the pit would have been 2ft deep in water!

Only thing they seem to have done over the closed season is fit the cars with cameras so they can try and sell you a DVD and they have made the queue larger by fencing in sections of what used to just be the path before you enter the stair case.
 
They have done work to drainage over the closed season, if you look at the drains you can spot the old and new, and also loads of loads of areas where they clearly wanted a drain but couldn't or they gave up, you can see where they have started to dig in to the concrete.

However even when there is a little bit of rain there are still areas of the queue that get flooded.
 
phildenholm said:
When I went in October it was pouring down and the queue was really bad for puddles something that I though they would have a go at putting right over the closed season however sad to report nothing at all had changed when I was there last week. There are drains, quite a lot of them however they seem to be blocked by crap and the concrete doesn't slope towards them so the rain just pools. It was raining cats and dogs as we left on Thursday so I imagine anyone still in the pit would have been 2ft deep in water!

Only thing they seem to have done over the closed season is fit the cars with cameras so they can try and sell you a DVD and they have made the queue larger by fencing in sections of what used to just be the path before you enter the stair case.
Click to expand...

They spent most of the closed season resetting a load of the foundations and they have added new drains but it's nowhere near enough.
 
Stepping stones might be the solution?


1507585_791972527482633_7194100420681187258_n.jpg

Oiriginal photo by @hoddsiecanary89.
 
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